When “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” was announced as the theme for next year’s Met Gala, much of the Black community celebrated the history of the Black dandy finally getting mainstream recognition.
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Online responses were mostly positive. And with the Editor-in-Chief of Vogue, Anna Wintour, even tapping some of Hollywood’s most stylish Black men— Colman Domingo, Lewis Hamilton, A$AP Rocky and Pharrell Williams – to co-chair the 2025 Gala, Black folks were relatively happy with the Met’s execution of such a pivotal part in fashion history, but there’s always more to the story.
Many fashion insiders continue to struggle with excitement ahead of the Met Gala for one sole reason: A lack of representation and proper credit within the fashion world as a whole. Celebrity fashion stylist and theatrical costumer Billie Causieestko, along with other fashion insiders, even planned to pen a letter to the Met expressing their concerns.
“We were actually going to compose a letter to the MET like ‘Hey please don’t execute this without total inclusion,’” Causieestko told The Root. Historically, Black designers and stylists are often overlooked on fashion’s biggest night. Although this is the time for the Met to right the wrongs of the past, many fear authenticity within the theme is lacking.
“I do think it’s about time [the Met] has Black representation in anything it does, but I do feel like it’s performative,” designer Bryon Lars told The Root. For him, it’s not just enough to finally focus on Black art when history tells a different story. The Met has “been so exclusively non BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, Person of Color) for the entirety of [its] existence, and so many people have called it out,” Lars continued.
Ironically, Black people accounted for 20 percent of luxury spending in the U.S. market in 2019 despite the visible lack of representation, according to the Business of Fashion. Not only that, but this percentage is expected to increase to 25 to 30 percent by 2025.
“The representation of what’s public facing should represent the dollars spent in those brands,” Lars said. Because of this, he struggles with giving the Met credit for finally pushing Black style to the forefront of the conversation.
Lars knows just how embedded Black culture is in the fashion world. “I can’t even imagine what the world would look like if Harlem hadn’t existed in the 1920s and 30s,” he said. “Black people have irrefutably shaped what style is— certainly in this country and globally.” So with the Met nodding to the Black dandy and the Harlem Renaissance, Lars just hopes they do it right.
“I certainly don’t have the highest expectations of what [the Met Gala] can be,” he told the Root. But even still, Lars said this is “still a first step.”
The designer, like many Black creatives in the New York City fashion industry, is conflicted. Because although he knows holding the Met accountable is necessary, he said “anything celebrating anything Black is probably a good thing.”
To ensure the 2025 theme is done responsibly, Causieestko said the responsibility lies on the media and even celebrities to push BIPOC creatives ahead. “Oftentimes, the European top brands— the ones that we know are globally recognized— always get top billing,” she said. But “the media can do better with coverage of the red carpet when there are designers that the public may not readily recognize, especially ones of color.”
It’s safe to say there’s a lot riding on next year’s Met Gala for Black creatives and for Black history. “That’s the history that I think needs to be celebrated,” Causieestko continued. “That in spite of what was going on financially with folks, they were still finding ways to present themselves stylishly.”
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